Date: Tue, 19 Nov 96 16:21:54 EST
From: ngltf@ngltf.org
Subject: Elvis Has Left The Building
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National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
PRESS RELEASE
Contact:
Robert Bray 415/552-6448 rbray@ngltf.org
pager 800/757-6476
Kerry Lobel 202/332-6483 x3307 klobel@ngltf.org
Don Hazen, IAJ 415/284-1420
2320 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009
http://www.ngltf.org
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ROBERT BRAY TO LEAVE NGLTF AFTER NINE YEARS OF SERVICE TO GAY AND LESBIAN
MOVEMENT;
WILL LAUNCH NEW PROGRESSIVE MEDIA CAMPAIGN AT INSTITUTE FOR ALTERNATIVE
JOURNALISM
Washington, D.C. Nov. 19, 1996...Long-time gay activist, director of
communications for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), and self-
described "media queen and movement spinmeister" Robert Bray will leave NGLTF
after nine years of pitching stories to the press and shaping public opinion on
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
Bray, 41, has been NGLTF media director and field organizer for the past
eight years. Prior to that, he was the first media director ever hired by the
Human Rights Campaign Fund (now HRC).
Bray is one of the most widely quoted and visible gay activists in America
today. He has appeared on virtually every major mainstream and gay television,
radio, print and internet media outlet -- dating way back to his first media
showdown with anti-gay arch-enemy Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values
Coalition on the Phil Donahue Show.
Bray's departure was announced at the 9th Annual NGLTF Creating Change
Conference held Nov. 6-10 in the Washington, D.C. area. It is effective at the
end of this year.
Starting in January of next year, Bray will join the Institute For
Alternative Journalism (IAJ), where he will launch a new media campaign he has
co-devised called S.P.I.N. -- Strategic Progressive Information Network. The
campaign will provide media trainings to progressive activists from a variety of
social change movements around the country, and organize progressive public
relations operatives into a media information network.
"I'm delighted to have the opportunity to do the work of building a
progressive coalition of PR people and using my 17 years of corporate and non-
profit media experience to give community activists the tools they need to shape
public opinion through the press," said Bray.
"At the same time, leaving NGLTF is bittersweet," he added. Bray joined
NGLTF in 1988. "I will miss the excitement of fast-breaking media dramas, all
of which I delighted in spinning. I will remember the compelling personal
stories of liberation by gay people that I can never resist pitching to
reporters. I will fondly recall my role in the ongoing struggle to overcome the
silence and shame of the closet and tell the truth about our lives to the
press." Bray added he is pleased with new NGLTF executive director Kerry
Lobel's commitment to increasing visibility for g/l/b/t issues in the media.
Prior to joining the gay movement in 1987, Bray was a public relations
executive for the IBM Corporation. He came out publicly -- almost by accident -
- on national television during the March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian
Rights in 1987, at which he volunteered to handle media at the Supreme Court
sodomy protest.
Since then, Bray has been at the forefront of almost every major g/l/b/t
initiative. He helped make numerous controversial issues into major media
stories and political debates, including gays in the military, domestic partner
rights, the federal government response -- or lack of -- to AIDS, the growing
political power of gays, censorship attacks on artists, anti-gay ballot
initiatives, same-sex marriage, corporate America's recognition of gay and
lesbian employees, the emerging visibility of bisexuals and transgenders, the
growing power of people of color within the gay community, and more.
"Robert has dedicated his professional life to change how society views and
treats gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people," said Kerry Lobel, NGLTF
executive director-designate. "His goal has always been to advance a
progressive agenda of justice and equality for all. He is driven to expose the
lies and myths perpetrated against us by our opponents, and in the process shed
light on our stories and our lives in the media. We will miss him but know he
will not be going that far away."
"We're tremendously excited about having Robert join us," said Don Hazen,
IAJ executive director. "IAJ is behind the effort to open up space in the
mainstream media for a greater plurality of opinions and messages. Robert is a
perfect match for our mission." IAJ, based in San Francisco, is a national
organization that works with independent and alternative media makers to ensure
a greater diversity of opinions and stories in the press. It sponsors the
annual "Media and Democracy" Conference.
Along with Urvashi Vaid, former executive director and media director of
NGLTF, Bray co-directed gay media operations at the 1988 and 1992 Democratic and
Republican national conventions. He co-founded VOICE (Voters Organized in
Coalition for the Elections), which marshaled activists and focused public
attention on gay and AIDS issues during the presidential elections. VOICES was
resurrected this year at the GOP convention in San Diego by local and national
activists, and sponsored a media action center that Bray worked.
In 1990 he helped launch an annual six-city media campaign, "Count and
Counter Hate Crimes," to publicize the shocking pervasiveness of homophobic
violence. He also publicized the passage of the Federal Hate Crimes Statistics
Act, one of the first pieces of federal legislation to positively include gays
and lesbians. Bray was invited to the White House by the Bush Administration
for its signing.
Bray has been centrally involved in promoting some of the largest g/l/b/t
public events in American history, including the 1987 March on Washington, the
1993 March on Washington, the Stonewall 25th Anniversary march in New York City
in 1994, and other events.
In recent years Bray conducted media workshops and Fight the Right training
conferences around the country. Since 1993, he has traveled more than 100,000
miles to some 40 states and 50 towns and trained more than 4,000 activists.
Bray's field work has taken him to where only fledgling, if any, openly gay
or allied groups exist. This included a 10-day, first-ever National Coming Out
Week tour of South Dakota, where he helped stage possibly the first gay photo-op
in that state in front of the Mt. Rushmore national monument.
Besides thousands of press releases, statements and position papers, Bray
authored NGLTF's gay marriage activist kit, "To Have and To Hold: Organizing For
Same-Gender Marriage." He is currently producing for NGLTF a comprehensive
media activist kit. Bray won the 1996 Institute for Alternative Journalism's
"Top Ten Media Hero" Award. He sits on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
Advisory Committee of the City of San Francisco Human Rights Commission. While
at IAJ he will remain based in San Francisco, where he lives with his life
partner, John Church.
NGLTF's Lobel said a national search will be conducted for a new media
director.
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